


Aftereffect

by GilShalos1



Series: Mine Eyes Dazzle [2]
Category: Law & Order
Genre: Angst, Complete, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2008-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8258726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: Jack McCoy, 2 am





	1. Jack

She's not Claire.

The way she touches him isn't the way Claire did, and her mouth doesn't taste like Claire's did, and the smell of her skin is nothing like Claire's.

Jack turns on his side and looks across at the woman sleeping next to him. At  _Not Claire_.

 _It was time to move on_ , he tells himself.  _People were starting to talk. Adam, Jamie – Liz Olivet. You only get so much time before they let you know, it's time to get over it. Time to move on._

He'd forced himself to date.

The first time he'd looked at a woman and felt a twinge of desire, the guilt had been unbearable. But he'd learnt to live with the guilt. He'd learnt to meet a woman and look at her for who she was, not who she could never be. He'd learnt not to compare.

And he'd pulled it off. No-one, looking at him now, would shake their heads and think  _Poor Jack McCoy. Tragic, how he never got over her._

He'd pulled it off, mostly. During daylight, it was easy. No-one could have guessed. Not Adam, perceptive as he was. Not Jamie, pleased that all her efforts to set him up had finally paid off. Not even the woman lying next to him, sleeping on her back the way Claire never did.

Jack gets quietly out of bed, careful not to wake  _Not Claire_ , and pads barefoot to the living room. He pours himself a whiskey. As he sips, he reaches to the back of the bookcase for a framed picture tucked away behind the others.

Claire looks out at him. She's laughing, her hair blown over her face by a gust of wind. He can't remember the day he took the photo, where they were, what they'd been doing, what he'd said to make her laugh like that. There's nothing in the world he wants more than to remember what he'd said to make her laugh like that.

_One thing._

Jack runs his fingers over the cold glass.

Then he puts the picture back behind his wedding photos and goes back to bed to lie awake beside  _Not Claire_ until dawn.


	2. Not-Claire

She knows Jack's not sleeping.

She knows he's not sleeping, but he's pretending to, and when she slides out from under the covers he doesn't move.

There's no point trying to be quiet as she wanders out to the kitchen for a glass of water. Jack's not sleeping, anyway.

The night-dark window shows her face, pale and ghostly in the glass, blonde curls flattened from the pillow. She turns away and goes into the living room.

The whiskey glass is where she knew it would be, neatly on the liquor cabinet. She picks it up and sniffs. The faint scent of fresh scotch. She puts it back.

Jack doesn't think she knows that there's an extra picture shoved up the back of the photos arranged on the bookshelf, behind the ones that show her smiling in her wedding dress. She looks at those pictures for a minute, at herself so happy, at Jack.  _Can you tell?_

Even now, knowing, she can't tell.

She reaches through and feels around until she touches the flat frame of the picture she's after, laid face down. Taking it out, she tilts it to the light, not that she needs to. She knows this picture by heart, she knows it as well as her husband does.

A beautiful young woman, shining dark hair ruffled out of its bob by a breeze, laughing and laughing at the camera, at the man holding the camera. Laughing and laughing.

She puts the picture back carefully, just as it was, and takes her empty water glass to the kitchen. As she puts it on the drainer she catches sight of herself in the window again. She looks like a ghost. She looks like a ghost, but she's not a ghost.

She's just  _Not Claire_.

She goes back to bed, where her husband pretends to sleep so she won't talk to him, so he won't have to talk to her.

She lies down next to him. Neither of them move toward the other.


End file.
